The cruiser Dark Horse responds to a distress call to find some fierce aliens and an opportunity to learn from different cultures. As you do.

Well it looks like Madison May of the Star Patrol has been picked up for a second series, or something like that. In any case, have a yarn about your favorite akita captain and her hapless crew! In seriousness your feedback is going to be the deciding factor on whether I continue or kill this, so let me know if the new style works for you, please :) And let :iconSpudz: know that he is Best Dog for editing this into decency!

Released under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license. Share, modify, and redistribute -- as long as it's attributed and noncommercial, anything goes.

Tales of the Dark Horse by Rob Baird

Episode 6: "First Impressions"

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With only ten crew aboard — one of them a professor and one of them a defrosted soldier dedicated to solving all problems through punching — the Dark Horse ran small watches. Fortunately, automation took care of most of the little details. And fortunately, most of the watches were boring. Lieutenant Commander David Bradley and Spaceman Mitch Alexander were alone on the bridge, focused on important tasks.

Commander Bradley's important task took the form of a crossword puzzle. The puzzle had begun to subject him to increasing frustration: he turned his computer first on its side and and then all the way upside-down, hoping for clarification. With each fruitless rotation, the specter of disappointment loomed larger and larger.

Chirp. Chirp. Chirp.

Every few seconds the ship's computer chimed three times, signaling that another round of sensor sweeps had been completed. They were out in uncharted territory, and while some of the crew would have been perfectly happy to charge in blindly David had managed to talk the captain into regularly dropping out of hyperspace for a proper survey.

Chirp. Chirp. Chirp.

If he'd been lazier, David would've just asked the computer for an answer to his question, but the retriever still aimed to have a little bit of dignity. What kind of XO would have to ask for help with a question like that? Mirrors a Golden Gate, or zevmar Javkrahuk-tigan.

“Spaceman Alexander?"

The Abyssinian looked up from her console. She was busy collecting information about the stars around them. Or, at least, she was collecting information — “busy" was a bit overpromising. “Sir?"

“'Mirrors a Golden Gate, or zevmar Javkrahuk-tigan.' Nine letters. The first one is probably a 'k'?"

Mitch Alexander let the console keep going on its own. Which it did; she used the distraction to keep from wondering what role a wayward cat had on a ship that mostly ran itself. Why am I even here?

'Adventuring' was the answer she would've been looking for. A lot of things could be automated, including stellar cartography. But if someone had ever suggested programming computers with a love of excitement, cooler heads had fortunately prevailed — dramatic software bugs to the contrary.

She thought about the clue for a few seconds before hazarding a guess: “Kvå¬bjxil."

The golden retriever in the captain's chair raised his muzzle, blinking at the noise that had come from the ruddy-furred feline. “What did you say? What was that sound?"

“¬?" She made it again, to a mix of surprise and displeasure from David. “It's a letter in Tigan."

It sounded more like a hairball. David fancied himself a dog of proper decorum, an officer and a gentleman, and so he didn't accuse the poor cat of such things — but it had been a very peculiar utterance. “Really?"

He didn't know why Mitch knew Tigan, although he also would not have been surprised to learn that it was because she had dated one. Very briefly — not much longer than it took the pants to come off. Even a Clearwater girl had to have some standards. “Check your translator, sir."

Chirp. Chirp. Chirp.

Choking sounds weren't the strangest way that aliens could communicate. For ineffably fortuitous reasons that none of them questioned, most of the species the Confederation met had some sort of speech. They didn't really have to care about learning it: that was what the universal translator was for.

A well-programmed translator could even work with the holographic viewscreen to interpret and adjust the image it displayed. For Terrans, this meant that everyone both sounded and looked to be speaking the native language of the listener, which was very convenient.

Other races produced more mixed results. The Cepheans, for example, vocalized by rubbing their forelimbs together, and the translator's attempt to superimpose holographic lips over this process had been quite disturbing. The Tigani had a secondary voicebox: a cat could make the hacking sound required; David could not.

At least, not when he was healthy. Either way, he found the dictionary proved Mitch correct: there it was, the word for 'San Francisco.' It came from some strange grammatical rule about reflections and mirages. Tigani were famous for their artistry — though not, surprisingly, for their singing.

“I bet these puzzles were easier when they only had thirty-four letters," David grumbled. A master of the craft, he would've been appalled to learn that in the dark ages crosswords had even fewer.

They all benefited from the relentless march of progress.

Both of the bridge crew, though, wished the march could quicken its pace. Madison May, their well-meaning if erratic captain, wanted to find an interesting star to look at, not just “any old random one," as she'd put it in a staff meeting.

In a sense, this was Mitch's job. The Computers, Communications, and Intelligence station integrated all the data that flowed into the Dark Horse's sensor array. Spaceman Alexander told her friends that she was responsible for 'intelligence.'

Her friends, most of whom were still back on Clearwater and therefore quite often stoned, assumed that this meant she was a spy. In fact it meant that she spent her day staring at computer readouts.

At least there was a wall at her back that offered some privacy: she pulled up a new window to continue the holocomic she was reading. The CCI console worked automatically.

Chirp. Chirp. Bong! Chirp.

The universal translator, a great boon to UX designers, also meant that they heard the jarring chime differently, precisely tuned to startle each species equivalently and immediately.

“Spaceman?"

Mitch brushed her holocomic aside, curled her long tail around her leg, and started scanning through the data. There was nothing from long-range astrometrics. There was nothing from the short-range sensors. “Trying, sir," she reassured her superior before the pause could become too dramatic.

Bong. Bong. Bong.

“Got it. It's coming from the hypersondes."

Backwards people, in the dark ages of the black death, witch trials and general relativity, had naively assumed that there was no way to travel faster than light. Then again, they had also assumed that there would never be any reason to use more than two digits to record the value of a year.

Like all such assumptions, they were made with good intentions. Faster-than-light travel was quite convenient for commerce and adventuring, but hell on record-keeping and many other things.

Including intelligence. In training, Alexander's instructor described the general chaos as 'planning a party where the guests show up before you invite them.' He also described it as a 'real fucking mess' and drank heavily.

The Dark Horse, lacking that option, coped by leaving probes in hyperspace that kept track of the ambient conditions and tried their level best to warn the crew if anyone was coming. Hypersondes were very precisely calibrated and also very chatty.

David was trying to decide if it was worth waking up the rest of the crew for what might prove to be nothing but a false alarm. “What is 'it,' spaceman? An incoming ship?"

The abby didn't think it was an incoming ship, but she also didn't want to tell the retriever that she was relying mostly on her intuition until the data became clearer. “No… it's smaller than that. Minor disruptions, coming from about a light-year away. Probably high-energy stuff in normal-space that's causing interactions in hyperspace. We're seeing it here first because… well, who says information can't travel faster than light?"

David grunted. In training, his instructor described the general chaos as 'winning a lottery before you know you're going to buy a ticket.' If that was actually true, though, she would've gone ahead and bought the ticket rather than torturing metaphors for Academy students. “Could be anything from a supernova to a mining operation, then, couldn't it?"

“Yes, sir."

The retriever pursed his lips, and called up a map of the surrounding space on the big viewscreen. Mitch pointed out the system, a binary with two small stars, neither of which seemed like a good candidate for exploding. “Hm. What do you think? Should we take a look?"

Of course she wanted to. 'High-energy' stuff was always fun, even if it could be a little hairy. Mitch Alexander hadn't joined the Star Patrol to read holocomics and provide crossword advice. But she sensed, correctly, that 'it's always fun' wouldn't persuade David. “It might be scientifically useful to investigate."

It was the right button to push, which kept Lieutenant Commander Bradley from dismissing it out of hand. He wished that they had more information on the system, that was all. It looked like a rocky planet, but there were no hints of anything else, no radio signals or indications of life.

He needed to be cautious because nobody else in a position of power would be. Their captain did not believe in looking before she leapt, and sometimes not in looking afterwards either. This general task fell on Bradley's shoulders, which made him seem cautious by comparison.

But he was bored, too. Theirs was a mission of exploration, after all. “Scientifically useful? Tell me how you really feel."

“Is there a nine-letter word for 'waiting around for something to happen is really, really boring,' sir?"

The retriever chuckled. “Right, okay."

He plotted a course that would take them in the direction of the system. In crowded places, with other ships and stations around, this was more complicated and took some degree of talent. In empty space, though, it was as simple as telling the computer where he wanted them to go and letting it handle the calculations automatically.

He waited until they were back in hyperspace to take the Dark Horse to Condition Yellow, because some of the ship's crew could be excitable and he didn't want to disappoint them. They had an hour to prepare, after all.

It meant that when Madison May arrived on the bridge, ten minutes later, Bradley and Alexander had a report ready for her. The akita took it with a grin of pleasant surprise. “You found me something, Dave?"

'Something' was about as generic a term as you could get, but they'd worked together so long that they both knew what was meant. 'Something,' in May-speak, needed to rise above the level of a rogue comet or a trinary star system or a particularly witty joke.

In the Academy, they taught cadets the importance of good communication. You couldn't just tell your commander 'you really need to see this' or 'it's like nothing I've ever seen before': it was useful for building tension, but tactical reports were not judged on literary merit and 'suspense' meant that they'd done their job extremely poorly.

Also, May had a way of building tension all on her own. She skimmed the briefing, looking for words like 'distress' or 'explosions.' “Firefight," she said immediately.

Had Bradley seen any explosions, he would've made sure the information was called out in nice big text to summon the akita's attention. There hadn't been; he cocked his head in the reflex he'd adapted to hide its real meaning of what have I gotten myself into. “Captain?"

To Madison May, it was obvious. The pulses recorded by the hypersondes had the emission characteristics of a maneuvering starship, and they were punctuated by more energetic bursts at wavelengths common to primitive atomics. “Here, see? This line that comes and goes. That's exhaust."

“It can't be," Bradley countered, although he meant that he didn't want it to be. “At that level, it would have to be a massive ship."

Madison May didn't look before leaping; Bradley did, but all the same he often found himself with the sinking feeling of having stepped over a chasm. He was getting that feeling now, in equal measure to the anticipation that was starting to wag Madison's tail.

“Should we change course?"

The suggestion was made for formality's sake, so May didn't bother teasing her XO for his reservations. Reservations, she thought, is a good way of looking at it. He'd call ahead for a table at a taco stand. “Of course not." She brushed her uniform down to make sure it looked nice and crisp.

As the Dark Horse hurtled further and further from crosswords and comics, the picture became increasingly clear. How the bridge crew took this depended on their level of caution.

Bradley pulled out a calculator and started trying to guess how powerful the weapons they were seeing might be. It looks like the shields will probably hold, was his conclusion. Behind him at the tactical station, Ensign Leon Bader used the same information and turned it on its head: well, this won't be much of a challenge for us.

Lieutenant Eli Parnell, their helmsman, set her paws on the ship's manual controls and quietly repeated to herself that she was ready until Mitch Alexander, close enough to hear, told the wolf to knock it off. Mitch thought Eli was too self-conscious. She also thought the cute young helmsman would be even cuter if she straightened up in that tight uniform of hers, and had made a bet with one of the engineers to that effect. 

Mitch had also made a bet with herself. She agreed with May that the information they had pointed towards a starship battle, just like the one in Scarlet Squadron vs the Regulan Death Legion. It also could point to a mining ship dismantling an asteroid, though.

They were about to find out. “Helm, get us back into normalspace," Madison ordered.

Of course, she didn't mean it quite that simply. Eli Parnell switched her display over to help guide her into the system, positioning them as precisely as she possibly could — at least, without testing her captain's patience. “In three. Two. One." 

The cruiser dropped back amongst the stars and their viewscreen came alive with colors. The computer was trying to make sense of a lot of information. Every time it picked up a new signal, it shaded it according to strength and its place in the electromagnetic spectrum.

Most of the signals were very, very bright. Ensign Bader knew what that meant: “Captain, picking up weapons fire from about a dozen ships. Most of them are concentrating their fire on a single target."

“I believe they're sending out a distress call," Mitch added. It could be hard to tell, but the ship being fired on was sending out a regularly modulated signal across a variety of communications bands and it seemed more likely to be a distress call than anything else.

Madison May liked to think of herself as helpful. The akita had joined the Star Patrol partly for this reason, in addition to an unsated need for adventure. “Do we recognize any of them?"

She was polling the group, though only a few of them were likely to know more than the akita did and they all came up short. Their diplomatic representative, Felicia Beltran, didn't recognize the language in the distress call and didn't recognize the shape of the starships.

It was time for a snap decision. “Open hailing frequencies," May barked. May barked many of her orders, like she'd learned how to give them from one of Mitch Alexander's holocomics.

Alexander exchanged glances with Beltran, and the two went to work. The computer matched the Dark Horse's transceivers up against the signal modulation they saw from the other ships. Beltran queued up the translation matrix to begin signaling. “Frequencies open."

“This is Captain Madison May of the Star Patrol cruiser Dark Horse. Identify yourselves. Is someone in need of assistance?"

The translation matrix came out of early experiments in diplomatic relationships, before the production of a universal translator. Not only were any two species extremely unlikely to speak the same language, the odds were good they might not be able to communicate at all.

So the translation matrix worked on universal constants. It started out with basic numbers and mathematical formulas that any spacefaring race would recognize. Then it associated them with words. Then it associated the words with concepts. The idea was simple enough that most races had some general equivalent.

Sure enough, Beltran and Alexander saw the linguistic computer starting to go to work with a data packet they'd received in answer. “It is not a distress call," Beltran said at once. The leopard was using her intuition; the translator was using words like 'prey' and 'bounty.' “They're pirates. They're sending out a message that they've claimed this prize as their own."

Pirates. May growled. Pirates represented everything that was wrong with the universe — all the technological advancement and accomplishment of civilization turned to the ends of preying on the weak. They were lawless, and not in the 'rules are made to be bent' sort of way that was the captain's hallmark.

Because the Terran Confederation had been at peace for decades, the Star Patrol saw very little combat. Guarding the tradelanes was an exception. It was an exception May lived for. Standing next to her, David watched the akita's lip curl and her ears perk as she dropped neatly into her element.

“Action stations. Take the ship to Condition Red."

A keen observer, like David Bradley, would've noticed the emphasis she put on the word 'action.' But he had a job to do, so the XO set aside his lecture for later. “Helm, unlock special restrictions on my authority. Switch system regulators to emergency. CCI, set combat mode; standby ECM. Tactical —"

Ensign Bader also put an emphasis on the word 'action'; the German shepherd had even sharper teeth than his captain. He didn't need to be asked twice. In fact, he didn't even need to be asked once: “Standing by, sir!"

David, who had resigned himself to putting up with their weapons officer's readiness, shook his head. “Tactical, bring all systems online. Go for active ranging. Deflector shields to full."

It was the kind of thing that Leon Bader daydreamed about regularly. He could do it in his sleep. “Deflectors active. Targeting systems are hot."

Madison waited for the final report to come in, from engineering, and then decided it was time to show some muscle. The Star Patrol was not about to be intimidated by pirates. “This is an official warning. Cease your attack and allow us to render aid or I will have to enforce this polite request."

Of course, the akita didn't make very many requests politely, and pirates had no sense of decorum, so nobody was very surprised when the signals on their sensor array began to turn. “Captain," Mitch Alexander dutifully reported. “They are coming about and taking an intercept course. Tally six, plus six more possibles." 

The six more possibles was because they were trying to adjust their course, and facing the bitter truth of inertia in a vacuum. Eagerness rarely paid off in space.

“They're targeting us, captain," Leon added. The tone in his voice did not suggest concern. It suggested that he could repay the favor, and would very much like to.

An opportunity for diplomacy appeared before May could reply. “We're being hailed." Alexander saw, from the transmission, that they were already using the Confederation's language.

Mutual intelligibility didn't, of course, imply mutual agreement. This ought to be good, May thought. “Put it through, spaceman."

The translator modulated the voice as calm and polite: “The survey ship is our quarry, Captain Madison May. I don't know who you are, but you don't have any business with our prey. We don't feel like sharing today, so I suggest that you run away before you get hurt. You don't frighten —"

We'll see about that. “Cut the channel," May snapped. “Helm, attack pattern alpha. Target the lead ship." The akita didn't take kindly to threats, and she didn't take kindly to the ghastly suggestion that somebody might not know of the Star Patrol or her most illustrious captain.

On the other hand, she was jumping a very literal gun. David coughed, and saw echoes of similar incidents in the akita's past. “Star Patrol ROE says we should hold fire until —"

“Torpedo launch!"

“— That," David finished. “Never mind."

Leon's eyes narrowed on his tactical console. “Stingrays, twenty-five plus, bearing zero down zero. Nine thousand kilometers." There were at least two dozen torpedoes, they seemed to be under active guidance, and they were straight ahead. What were they armed with? Would the shields hold? Let's find out, was the shepherd's take on the matter.

“Rig point-defense for maximum coverage," David ordered quickly, before it could come to that. There was no point in taking any unnecessary chances. But with the point-defense cannons saturating the area in front of the Dark Horse, it would be impossible to launch their own torpedoes. He threw Leon a bone: “And ready particle cannons."

Leon took the bone, and worried it between sharp teeth. “Firing solution on the lead ship, sir! And the next closest one." And two more. Leon spent a lot of time playing starship simulators, and they were very faithful.

“Hit 'em both," Madison growled, watching the viewscreen like a hawk as the first salvo of torpedoes entered the effective range of the point-defense system.

“Got twelve. Sixteen. Nineteen. Four left, captain. Three. Two."

Intercepting an incoming missile at over forty kilometers a second of closure was not exactly easy, though, and now they were inside the range of the defenses. David keyed the intercom. “Brace for impact."

The Dark Horse took the missiles against her forward deflector shields with a displeased shudder. They had large conventional warheads, though, not atomics: pirates couldn't sell irradiated cargo. Leon let the impact rock him, then checked the reports. “Shields holding at eighty-two percent. And particle cannons are ready."

May crossed her arms. She and Leon both agreed it was time to teach a lesson in whether or not to be frightened by the Star Patrol. “You're free to engage."

That was the helmsman's cue. Eli Parnell checked the guidance Leon was giving her, although it didn't take much work because the targets were dead ahead. No need for fancy maneuvering to put them in the sights of the particle cannons. “Framing in four, six on primary. Tactical interlock… set." She held in the button on her controls that transferred helm authority to the weapons officer.

“Firing!"

Eli thought that Leon spent too much time reading about the ship's weapons, and practicing with them, and talking about them. Most of the crew thought that. He tried to explain the importance of being well-armed, although for the most part even Madison brushed him off.

Physics, however, was not so easygoing. Displeased at having been undermined by the existence of faster-than-light travel, physics vented its frustration in showing exactly what happened when a twelve hundred terawatt particle beam intersected a pirate ship.

And then, in case nobody had gotten the message, it did it again. The first pirate ship more or less disappeared instantly. The second converted itself into a rapidly expanding cloud of shrapnel, as though whatever remained was trying extremely hard to get away from the furious protons.

Leon gave Eli her ship back — for the moment. “Good hits on both targets! Firing solutions on targets three and four." He hadn't been asked, strictly speaking, but the shepherd was enthusiastic about his job as self-appointed guard dog.

'Targets three and four,' though, along with five and six and the other half-dozen ships that had not been part of the first wave, were having second thoughts about their line of work. Mitch Alexander caught the telltale signs of thrusters firing, being pushed to their absolute limits. “The other ships are breaking off, captain."

Madison bared her teeth in a grin after the disappearing pirates. “Pick on someone your own size, eh?"

With the immediate crisis resolved, her more levelheaded XO started scanning the data they had from their sensors on the marauding ships' intended victim. Your own size was one way of putting it: the ship was nearly three kilometers long. 

He put it on the main viewer, so the bridge crew could take a look.

Once again they all had quite different reactions. Eli's first thought was that it could not have been very maneuverable, even without the fires visibly burning through an exposed patch of hull. It looked like a toppled, partially collapsed skyscraper: boxy, jagged, and with lots of pieces going the wrong way.

Spaceman Alexander was more taken by the jet black color. She hadn't been as quick with her tactical training as Leon, but she knew that you kept your hull black when you wanted to give up a lot of heat — and the ship had a lot of hull to be giving it up. Laser weapons? Thermally wasteful engines? It was an interesting engineering problem.

“My god." Leon, predictably, was caught up in other things, sweeping his tactical scanners over the other ship with an attention to detail that bordered on a caress. “That ship is packing, sir. Based on what we can see, I can pick out torpedo launchers, missile rails… probably some plasma cannons, light close-range defense grids…"

May looked at her first officer, and they shared a thought that was similar, though not identical. Lieutenant Commander Bradley thought that the litany of weapons seemed out of character with a vessel of exploration. Also, painting yourself completely black did not send an especially friendly message.

May thought that the litany of weapons seemed like good preparedness, particularly since it seemed that it hadn't been enough. “Are their weapons working? Spaceman Alexander, can you hail them? Dr. Beltran, I suppose you don't know of any ships like this, right?"

They'd been over that already. Felicia shook her head, and didn't bother to remind May yet again that her mission was to smooth out first contact, rather than to act as a living xenocultural database. The two hadn't been fighting as much, and Beltran didn't want to ruin their progress. “I haven't. They're transmitting something that's identifiable as a translation matrix, though. I'm running it through the computer now."

She'd also learned to skip the details about the languages it seemed closest to. This occasionally provided useful insights on the ship's background — sometimes she could tell when a translation matrix had been adapted from a species she was familiar with. But since May didn't care about little details like that, she focused on converting the alien tongue into something that the crew of the Dark Horse could understand. 

“Ready, captain."

“Open a channel. Take it away, Dr. Beltran."

Some of their actions had already spoken fairly loudly, but Beltran struck a more muted course. “Unidentified vessel, this is the Star Patrol cruiser Dark Horse. We are on a mission of peaceful exploration. Our captain, Madison May, wishes me to convey that your attackers are retreating, and to ask if you require any assistance."

The voice that answered seemed to boom from deep within a cave flanked with torches and dire warnings. “You speak with Xabok Garra, Overenforcer of the Kolash pride. Your assistance was noted, but not required, Madison May. We would have gutted them and made tombs of their puny vessels."

Felicia Beltran had shut her eyes tightly. Why can't just one first contact go smoothly? Why does everyone have to be like this? And she faced a new dilemma, because such conversations were always fraught. Was the captain simply posturing? Or was this just how meetings went in their culture? “Xabok Garra, there is no weakness in accepting help graciously. We took up arms against those…" Felicia rolled her eyes, and improvised. “Lowly, scavenging scum, because it is the duty of all just warriors to strike down such things."

“You are warriors now? You talked of peaceful exploration," the voice replied darkly. “Or was that also an act?"

“Continue to slight my captain, and we shall offer a demonstration." Felicia would not have appreciated May's smile had she been looking to catch it.

Silence hung, preceding a rolling deep tone that the translation computer identified as 'Laughter [probable?].' “I wish to meet your captain, Dark Horse. Come. Let us speak."

The channel closed. May, who saw an opportunity to make new and interesting friends, was clearly ready to take them up on the offer. Her XO was in the process of considering his options. Explaining that the captain needed to invite herself on fewer away missions was right out; she never cared for that line of reasoning.

Pointing out that a strange alien commanding a vast battleship painted jet black and festooned with weapons might not exactly be like a tea ceremony also probably wouldn't work, because it implied that May would be more comfortable with tea ceremonies.

And May wasn't bothering to wait around, so he had to act fast. “Captain, we should consider our options before… er…"

She had stopped, and was looking at him, but the look reminded him that she already had considered her options. “Peaceful exploration, Dave, right?"

“At least take Ensign Bader with you."

In risky situations, Bader was at least a pragmatic choice. “Sure. Ensign Bader, Dr. Beltran…" Madison looked around the bridge for another potential companion. “Barry."

The science officer, a somewhat scatterbrained Border collie, was attentive enough to know that his name was rarely mentioned in that tone when something good was about to happen. “Captain?"

“Ensign Schatz, you're also with me. Let's go."

Barry Schatz did not particularly enjoy away missions. He liked new things, and he liked discoveries, but there was a lot to be said for having a hull and deflector shields between him and whatever an 'overenforcer' was.

He locked his station reluctantly, and crossed the bridge to join a far more eager Leon Bader, who was too preoccupied with thinking ahead to the ship's armory to notice his colleague's flattened ears. Madison May noticed, but she was eager to get a move on: “Dave, you have the bridge."

Leon's pestering brought them to the armory, where he retrieved a pair of pulse rifles. Technically he retrieved four, but when Schatz and Beltran professed no interest he set them back for another time. At least Madison was willing to take one. She looked like a natural with it, the same way she looked like a natural shouting combat orders on the bridge of a star cruiser.

While the akita powered up a shuttle and Leon went back to obsessively checking the electronics on his rifles, Barry did his best to ignore the possibility that the obsession would be called upon. The Border collie strapped in to his seat and tightened the harness as far as it would go.

Across from him — they both had known subconsciously that the pilot and copilot's seats would go to May and Bader — Felicia did the same thing. “Maybe this will be the one that goes well," she said, quietly enough that it was clearly meant to reassure herself and loudly enough to unsettle the other passenger.

“You don't think it will?" Barry asked.

He wouldn't have liked hearing the answer; fortunately the leopardess didn't like giving it, so her silence was the lesser of two evils. They both stayed silent while the shuttle slipped into open space. It gave them an opportunity to reflect.

The ship seemed much, much larger than before. For the most part it was unlit; its outlines were defined by a huge, ominous space where the stars simply ended. On Terra, starship designers at bright, friendly, nicely catered conferences talked about the message that a ship's aesthetic could send.

Newer Star Patrol ships were fluid and cetacean-like, with graceful lines and soft colors. They sent a message of technological sophistication and friendliness. Dr. Vaws Vimalok, of Ateus Astradyne, said at a talk that this was deliberate.

We feel that a starship can say “hello. It's nice to meet you."

The ship they were now approaching did not say 'hello' or 'it's nice to meet you.' At best, it said 'no solicitors'; more precisely it said: 'go away, or not, the choice is mine.'

“Maybe we could conduct this conversation remotely?" Barry suggested. The ship was drifting past open landing bay doors and onto a flight deck full of other ships that also did not say 'hello.' 

Madison found the little ships rather intriguing. They weren't big enough for boarding parties. On the other hand, while the Star Patrol did use them, May considered 'starfighters' to be strictly in the domain of Scarlet Squadron vs. the Regulan Death Legion. In the real world, they were too small to do any damage, too fragile, and too hard to control in deep space. The Star Patrol used them mostly as scouts. These did not look like scouts.

Hm, she thought. I wonder what that means? And she rather relished the opportunity to find out for herself. “We might not be able to. Maybe they have an official diplomatic language that can't be transmitted on audio alone. Like the Taurans, right, Dr. Beltran?"

She wasn't wrong: Taurans spoke trader pidgin, but they thought of it as vulgar. Their real language was made up of flashing colors and pheromones. “She has a point," the leopard said, sighing. “But maybe their atmosphere is toxic to us."

Flashing lights pointed the way to a landing pad, and the akita gently guided their shuttle onto it. “That's what our respirators are for. The clip-on respirators are good for conditions through hazard class five. Right, Mr. Schatz?"

The Border collie's ears drooped. She has a point.

The atmosphere was just fine. This wasn't really all that surprising; there were only so many ways to breathe. It was a little thicker than they expected, and the artificial gravity was a bit heavy, but neither presented anything like an insurmountable obstacle.

May and Bader took the first steps down into the dark shuttle bay, with their weapons at their backs. Felicia and Barry followed at some distance, although the longer they went without anything startling happening the more the Border collie was willing to let his natural sense of interest take  over.

A light began pulsing over a heavy door at the end of the shuttle bay. They waited. The door slid up and open, revealing a few shadows of indeterminate form. May looked to Felicia; Felicia shrugged.

May shrugged, too. “Xabok Garra?"

One of the shadows stepped forward. The creature's three and a half meters made it difficult to miss. Her thick, shaggy fur was spotted, and if her canine muzzle and ears gave the overall impression of a massive hyena, the long, curving dagger claws made the look into something far more frightening. “Xabok," the creature answered.

“And this is a ship of the… Kolash pride."

“I am an Overenforcer of the Kolash pride. The Kedagh is a dreadnought of the Uxzu Dominion. Kolash is in our tongue the Pride of Axes, and the Kedagh is one of our sharpest."

She was, Madison observed, carrying such an axe slung over her shoulder. The akita wasn't about to be cowed simply because the weapon alone was nearly as tall as she. More shadows filtered out and into the room, standing behind Xabok. They also had axes. “I thought you were a survey ship?"

“We are. What is the point of surveying if you cannot take what you find?" There was a certain internal logic to the statement that May had to admire; she nodded understandingly. “We seek new resources and unexplored planets to expand the empire's frontier. Our life serves only the Pride. Our Pride serves only the Dominion."

In unison, the other crew spoke: “Shield, blade, and claw."

“Sharp teeth make strong borders." Xabok grinned, so that when the Star Patrol visitors heard the booming, slow beat that came from deep in the creature's chest laughter went from '[probable?]' to '[certain, but unsettling].' “And what do you do, Madison May?"

“We're a ship of explorers, well beyond the Terran frontier. Our mission is to learn more about the galaxy, and to establish first contact with new civilizations. And, as you know, to defend ourselves if need be." Officers did take an oath to join the Star Patrol, but it was mostly platitudes about peace and warm galactic fuzzies. Our life serves only the Pride had much more of a ring to it. “Generally, it doesn't."

“A pity. The heart pumps strongest when it carries you into battle against a worthy foe."

May arched an eyebrow, and looked to her side. “Leon?"

The German shepherd had been keeping his mouth completely shut, his ears completely perked, and his tactical mind completely ready for anything the strange aliens might've tried. It was not to say that he disagreed with them, far from it. So he spoke his mind. “Those weren't worthy foes. They were just criminals. You saw how we took care of them."

Another of the crew came forward, shorter than Xabok by half a meter but no less imposing. “You know how we take care of them, small one? They are the Wanesh clan, a huge family of raiders. We came across a station they had set an ambush in. They thought they would take us. Xabok crushed their elder's skull between her paws."

“Even their blood is filthy," the captain added. “So, small warrior. Tell me of your battles."

“Our first mission, we faced off against two hundred warships of the Harmony of Tuul in the skies over Tuul Prime. We crippled their flagship before they could unleash a superweapon that would destroy subspace. Three weeks ago, we encountered a living ship that turned us into a sparring partner. Before that, we nearly lost our chief engineer, and I had to board a ship overrun by the Naltabik to rescue her. Since leaving Earth, we've seen nothing but battles."

Xabok bent her head down, leaving Leon keenly aware that her jaws were more than big enough to completely surround the shepherd's skull. Her keen, pale eyes had the jagged, glittering sharpness of broken glass, staring right into him. “You know of the Naltabik?"

Her breath did not smell especially pleasant. Leon forced himself to ignore it. “Yes. Fortunately, we defeated them."

“Enemies of the Naltabik and the Wanesh. Mm." She straightened up to full height, dwarfing the terrans, and reached behind her back. When she brought her paw forward again, it was clasping a stout metal staff capped with a focusing ring for a particle beam. Xabok held it out straight, for Madison May to take. “As a friend. May this serve you well against common foes."

The akita tried to take it with one paw, and quickly realized that two would be needed. The weapon weighed a good twenty kilograms. Muscles straining, she tried to bow her head smoothly. “Thank you."

But she stopped at that. Sensing that her captain didn't really know what to do next, Felicia Beltran coughed quietly to get her attention. That didn't help, so she switched translator off. “Captain. We should reciprocate."

“Ah!" Right, right, May realized. Diplomatic niceties. “Good point. Leon! Your rifle."

Leon didn't really understand diplomatic niceties, either; what he did understand was that they had no way to replace plasma rifles beyond the frontier. It was also a strong violation of Star Patrol protocol to go handing out weapons to strange Overenforcers you'd just met.

May was sympathetic to his hesitation, but not quite as sympathetic as she was to the need to make a good impression, and also the need to put the staff down because her arms were burning. “Ensign Bader…"

The shepherd sighed, and unslung his plasma rifle. Checking the safety, he stepped forward and offered it to the Uxzu captain. She took it, and aped the polite bow Madison had given. “It shall be tested in good combat against a worthy opponent."

May, having no real reply to this, nodded.

“I shall toast the first taste of their blood to you."

And the akita had used up her stoic nod of the exchange. “Uh. Thank you." She cast about for something else to say. “I'm sure we… have much to learn from one another. Beyond tasting blood. I look forward to… meeting in the future…"

Xabok turned her piercing stare on May. The massive predator narrowed her eyes, slowly, giving no sign of what was going through her mind. “Perhaps. Yes. Perhaps we must talk, as comrades." Her idea of 'future' was more compressed. “I will dine with you. Tonight."

Another of the Pride of Axes raised his voice. “Captain, we've only met these tiny beasts. We don't know what guile is in their —"

Whirling, Xabok slammed her fist into the man, sending him sprawling. Before he could get up she'd grasped her axe, whipping it around in a chopping downstroke that embedded it in the deck scant centimeters from his head. “Question me again, Malim. Question my judgment and honor again."

“Captain, I did not mean…"

“Now you disobey an order?"

The crewman halted. “I merely meant that we should exercise caution with new races. As friendly as they might appear." His ears were back, and all three meters of him looked to be cringing. None of the others had intervened on his behalf.

Xabok hauled him to his feet roughly, her great dagger-claws hooking into his chest. “Madison May, shall I execute him for this insult?"

It was a rather dramatic thing to be put on the spot for, and when the akita looked to her crew they all seemed equally startled by the quick turn of events. May settled on her best judgment. “Ah. I don't think that will be necessary. I don't know your culture, of course," she offered — mostly to soothe Felicia's feelings. “But in ours, he would have raised a good point. Being cautious isn't necessarily shameful."

The other captain let the man go; to his credit he remained standing, ignoring the blood that now dripped steadily to pool at his feet. Xabok grunted heavily. “There is a fine, thin line between caution and cowardice, Madison May. And between mercy and meekness. If you had not shown your honesty already, I would kill you both."

Sensing a threat to his captain, Leon spoke without thinking. “You mean that you'd try. Don't count on it."

“You would stop me?" The captain looked at the shepherd, raising her lip to show fangs the length of his arm. Her thudding laughter rang out again. “Malim, I think you mistake temerity for guile. The tiny one is serious."

“He seems to be," Malim admitted.

“Then we shall dine. I permit you to retire to your ship for now, while we repair our own. I shall contact you to arrange the meeting. Do not be bothered by Malim's insults. My mate has had to learn many such lessons before." On closer investigation, he did indeed bear many scars.

At least, May hoped, the regularity of such lessons would make dinner less awkward. “We, um. We look forward to it, then." That wasn't completely true, but nor was it a lie — once the shuttle lift was closed, and they were alone, the akita beamed. “See, now, that wasn't so bad."

All such judgments depended on the degree to which they were calibrated. Some diplomatic missions never returned from their intended targets. Others were welcomed with feasts and pleasant company. For obvious reasons, the Foreign Affairs Ministry tended to dwell on the latter when recruiting new members.

But even Felicia had to admit that they'd made a decent first impression, nobody had been kidnapped, and everyone was still in one piece. The leopardess was not particularly thrilled that this made for a notable success, but what could one do?

“Noticed you were pretty quiet, Ensign Schatz," May continued, setting their shuttle back on course for their cruiser.

Barry swallowed. “Didn't want to get eaten."

Madison wasn't nearly reckless enough to say that the Uxzu seemed harmless, but at least they seemed honest. That counted for a lot with the akita, who hadn't felt in danger of being consumed at any point. She viewed herself as the star in her own adventure, and so far the universe had played along. “Well, you didn't. Now, Dr. Beltran, you don't have anything in the database about the Dominion? You'd think with all the talk of fighting and blades and whatnot, word might've gotten out."

The leopard didn't. The Terran Confederation's utter lack of knowledge about anything beyond the frontier was both unfortunate and unsettling. Felicia settled on being as prepared as she could with generalities. 

Captain May was more of a pragmatist, so once they were safely back on the Dark Horse she ordered Schatz to the research lab, directing him to go through the information the wandering starship Qalamixi had provided to them.

He agreed, partly hoping it would keep him from having to return for dinner and partly because now that he was no longer in any danger of being sacrificed his curiosity was back in full force. Qalamixi's data crystal was so fantastically dense that the odds were good they might be able to find something.

But it was also so dense that there was no good way to search it. He relied on skimming, and intuition, and his own tendency to skip between topics at a moment's notice.

Also, a bit of luck. It was never possible to have too much luck.

Ten years before, Qalamixi had encountered a derelict victim of Waneshan raiders — fortunately, skimming quickly, he caught the spelling 'Awunej' and stopped to read more. The ship's log contained an offhand reference to the Uxzu, and Qalamixi's own cross-referencing brought him back to a wealth of material.

It was far more than he could ever have digested on his own, so he split up the work with Dr. Beltran. She was happy to be putting her analytical skills to work, and although she didn't care for Barry's lack of focus she was willing to put up with it if it meant going into their next meeting with the Uxzu better-informed.

But that would only happen if they found something useful. Three hours later, all she knew were anecdotes, random logs, and shipping reports. The leopardess felt the nagging feeling that she was missing something.

Her companion also felt this nagging feeling, although what Barry was missing was sleep, or coffee, or both. “I don't know that this was a good idea," he admitted. Every wall of the research lab had been turned into a screen, and every screen was crammed full of records they'd unearthed.

“We should keep at it. If you sit by a river long enough, you will see the body of your enemy float by."

“Some Uxzu proverb?"

Felicia shook her head. “It is supposed to be Chinese, I think. It urges patience."

Frustrated and low on caffeine, Barry wasn't in the mood to play along. “It doesn't even make sense. It could just as easily be that if you sit by a river long enough, you fall in and float by your enemy."

The interpretation missed the point with such a curious degree of accuracy that Felicia had to smile. “Okay, you might be right, Mr. Schatz. But unless you have a better idea, I suggest that we continue going through the river."

“Looking for what?" 

“A clue. A hint as to the character of their species. What motivates them. Are they friendly — and should we be friendly to them? Otherwise, Mr. Schatz, we are all equally lost."

“Their leader is called an 'overenforcer' and their survey ship is armed to the teeth. Doesn't that tell us something?"

It could tell them lots of things, Felicia pointed out. It could tell them that the Uxzu Dominion was aggressive and expansionist, looking to capture territory and slaughter the natives. Or it could tell them that they believed in posturing and looking threatening to avoid conflict.

Or maybe it meant nothing. Perhaps the dreadnought was obsolete, and pressed into service as a vessel of exploration rather than war. “Like us. The Dark Horse is very unique."

“That's one way of putting it…"

Meanwhile, in the captain's ready room, Madison May was coping with just such a consequence of the ship's uniqueness. This one, though, was closer to home. “How are we managing our interpersonal relationships?"

The question was so loaded that David wanted to look around for a fuse and a safety switch. “Um. What do you mean, captain?"

May rolled her eyes. David was always so taken aback by her lack of formality, but when she tried to be proper and discreet he professed not to understand what she meant. “We decided not to tell the crew to keep their paws to themselves, right?"

“We decided it would be hard to police, at least."

“Do you think it's a problem?"

David had no reason to think it was; the Dark Horse was a motley band of misfits, to be sure, but they seemed to mostly get along. The alternative would have been to expect a bunch of energetic young adventurers to ignore their biology for the duration of the mission.

Pointing out the possibility for drama, or that navies had managed exactly such an expectation for millennia, wouldn't have mattered. The retriever was not himself perfect in this regard, and Maddy was in an open relationship with chaos.

“I don't think it's a problem. It's not affecting anyone…"

“It's not?"

She'd asked that quite pointedly, in a way that made the question rhetorical and its subject obvious. Madison had been raised on adventure stories with heroic captains who were not merely dashing but also libidinous.

As it happened she also saw herself as the central figure in such a story, and as most of the events in her life had proven this assumption correct she was slightly frustrated in the cases where it had gone wrong. “Well?"

“Ah. Maddy, when you said 'our interpersonal relationships,' did you mean 'our' as in the crew of the Dark Horse, or did you mean 'our' as in… well…"

She folded her paws and stared him down. “Dave. Here's the thing."

The door buzzed; with the conversation having taken a turn for the awkward, David was happy enough to summon whoever the visitor turned out to be. Even the results — Barry Schatz and Felicia Beltran — only imperceptibly dampened his enthusiasm. “Progress?" he asked, hopefully.

Barry had been, with some difficulty, learning to temper his answers, and to keep them fairly simple. He had a reputation for going on at length about whatever happened to have piqued his interest. “Yes," he said.

There was, of course, a middle ground, and the Border collie had failed utterly to chart it. David Bradley was forced to prompt: “What did you find out?"

“Once upon a time, the Dominion commanded territory almost twice the size of what Qalamixi's records now indicate they own. It's been shrinking piecemeal for years."

Well, Madison May thought, they probably have trouble making friends. “How many years?"

“Thousands, captain." Heartened by the fact that, for once, the akita seemed to be paying attention, Barry drew entirely the wrong conclusion. “They were at their peak centuries before the founding of Rome. Actually, if you consider the rise and fall of the Roman Empire, though, the parallel is probably closer to —"

“Later." The akita, like everyone else in the room, was not particularly interested in a tedious lesson on Earth's history. “What happened?"

“Their political structure is hierarchical and clan-based. It was useful for quick expansion, but they weren't particularly interested in banding together to hold the territory." 

“Then why did they take it in the first place?" David asked.

“Resources, mostly. Their home system was not very rich in raw materials. At least, that's what I've been able to divine. Now, if you look at some of the trading routes that they inaugurated, you might conclude that —"

The Border collie wasn't especially good at keeping to one topic. He had to be carefully managed. “We might," Madison May interrupted him again. “But again: later. So they took all this territory…"

Through ten minutes of progressively more terse questioning they landed on the heart of the matter, which was that a decentralized, autonomous system of government made it difficult for the Uxzu to defend what they controlled. Native uprisings were only part of it; most of their charges didn't seem in great need of independence.

Outside threats were the real problem — like it had been, had anyone let Barry finish, for the Roman Empire. The Waneshan raiders were just one of dozens, either operating on their own or bankrolled by more predatory races in the area. Qalamixi had records about that, too: stations and starships and entire planets overrun by the pirates, who had little need for governance because they had little need to leave anyone alive in the first place.

“So if you look at it that way, we really did them a favor," May mused, reflecting on having driven off the pirates. “The real question is… what do we do now?"

Lieutenant Commander Bradley didn't like it when she asked questions like that. It often implied that she was planning something, and while Maddy's heart was generally in the right place it had an unsettling way of putting the rest of the akita in the wrong one. “What do you mean?"

“Well, it's a question of diplomacy, isn't it? We chose to help them out — what else can we do?"

“You mean like repairing their ship?"

It was a good start. To her way of thinking, it was not the place of the Star Patrol to abandon others, particularly not new friends — even strange ones, with sharp teeth and loud voices. The next step was to call a meeting, to which she added Leon Bader and Shannon Hazelton, their idiosyncratic chief engineer.

Lieutenant Hazelton wasn't at all opposed to some repair work — it wasn't that often that opportunities appeared to work on completely alien technology. The only problem was that the raccoon didn't understand it especially well.

It was not an insurmountable problem; indeed, had she voiced it to the group one of them might waggishly have pointed out that a lack of understanding hadn't kept Hazelton from experimenting on their main reactor. For the benefit of all, when May asked about repairing the Uxzu dreadnought Shannon kept her smile from becoming too threatening in its eagerness.

“Anyway, it's not like they're on the cutting edge, Mads."

“They're not?"

The question hadn't been directed at Barry, but he answered anyway. “No. Er, uh — no, captain, I mean. I was looking at the weapon thing that they gave you, and I have to say it's pretty interesting that way. For one, the power distribution unit seems to have been designed using a dissipator rather than a Grant thyristor. That explains something else I noticed."

“Give us the elevator pitch," David asked.

This was not easy. For Barry, the phrase itself immediately made him think of elevators themselves, and how the Nizirish had invented a completely new means of vertical transportation based on air currents. This reminded him of the Nizirish Parliament, virtually unique in the way it —

David Bradley gave the Border collie's internal monologue another few seconds to tick along, and then pulled him back. “Ensign Schatz. Elevator pitch."

He sighed. “We never built a particle lance like that. By the time we got around to thinking about them, Grant units had completely supplanted dissipating filters. I've seen them in museums, but that's all."

Unfortunately for Madison May's attention span and David's pragmatism, something he'd mentioned piqued Hazelton's interest, too. “Dissipators probably also explain that ship's heat signature. They must be losing half their energy in thermal waste. When you examined that weapon, was there any iridium in the power assembly?"

Barry nodded, and opened his muzzle, but May knew the odds of anything coming from it other than technobabble were fairly low and she didn't feel like dwelling on the details. “So it's old. That's what you mean?"

“Ancient," Shannon said. “It's so old it's not even retro chic. Just obsolete."

“We could replace it?"

The raccoon's ringed tail started to sway, and her eyes brightened with a hint of the mischief that was her species' hallmark. “Sure. Some of that we could do in-place, even. Of course, some of it would take a refit, but once you show somebody how to do it, it's not that hard. But you're opening up a can of worms, Mads."

Not that the akita was any stranger to that. May had depleted the Star Patrol's supply of worm cans long before; that was why she was on the frontier. “How big of a can?"

Shannon explained, in layman's terms, that if the Uxzu were still using that kind of technology it was highly unlikely that they'd figured out sophisticated deflector shields, or long-term holographic storage, or any number of other things.

“We could teach them," Barry pointed out, and then flinched as every pair of eyes in the room came to rest on him. “Like Qalamixi did. We could pay it forward." 

“You're talking about meddling with the affairs of an ancient civilization," David said. “It's not quite that simple. This could have major repercussions." Although the Uxzu Dominion had doubtless done their own share of meddling, and he knew that, too.

Most starfaring empires meddled. When they got big enough, and bored enough, it was only natural to start playing around with less advanced neighbors. Generally — and officially, at least — it was for humanitarian reasons. The Terran Confederation liked 'uplifting' the less fortunate.

“Leaving them alone could have consequences, too, Dave. Those pirates didn't seem very savory. We'd just be helping Captain Xabok keep her ship safe. And her people." And Madison liked Xabok, who took after the akita's own personality. May's intuition told her that Xabok would do the right thing. “Don't you think? What was your impression, Leon?"

Leon had been impressed by the Uxzu's gumption — and the size of the dreadnought — but he didn't know that he was comfortable with where May seemed to be going. “They seemed to be honorable, captain. But teaching them technology that could be used for weapons…" 

“Cool technology," Shannon added, on May's behalf. “Cool weapons."

Charitably, the point might've been considered missed. “What if they use them against us?"

“So you say 'no,'" May cut to the chase. “And you say 'yes,' lieutenant?"

Hazelton's answer really should've been more complicated, because she didn't just want to agree, she wanted to get her paws on alien technology to see what else they might've been doing. Shannon liked alien tech. She'd worked in R&D before the Dark Horse, and had she not accidentally blown up a series of her own laboratories she might still have been allowed to continue.

“Dave, you're a good voice of reason. That means you say 'no,' too?"

It was the retriever's role on the ship to be, as she put it, the voice of reason; it was also his role to be ignored considering the fraught relationship that May and reason had. “That would be the most appropriate course of action. It would also be in keeping with the Confederation's mandate regarding foreign interference."

“The Irrational Directive?" May asked.

This was not its real name. A policy of general interference with lesser-developed cultures was encoded in what the Terran Confederation referred to as General Order 1766, Subsection 7.A–7.C, Amendments to Foreign Policy Codex Appendices 14 and 15, 2805 Revision, Modifying Standard Regulations of Confederation Protocol Under Specific Cases Defined Herein.

 But in announcing it, the Prime Minister had explained: “We believe that civilizations should be left to develop in peace. It shall be our prime directive, because it should be a universal constant like that famous number, 3.14159…"

Like pi, General Order 1766 sub 7.A–7.C was subject to rough approximation depending on the circumstances, which David Bradley felt were insufficiently exigent. “I think we should consider the possible implications, captain," he said.

Although, so far as the akita was concerned, that was exactly what they were doing. With Leon and her XO opposed, and her science officer and chief engineer in favor, the vote was deadlocked. It was the kind of gordian knot that May delighted in cutting; at the same time, she didn't want to be seen as capricious — and she did trust Bradley.

Bradley also trusted his captain, though this was partly because she always managed to land on her feet and he was hoping the tendency wasn't simply a fluke. “Dr. Beltran, what do you say?"

With a reputation for being the only one more by-the-book than the XO, Felicia knew what was expected of her. She didn't even have to look at May to know that the akita was already dreading the coming lecture on Foreign Ministry protocol.

There had never been any way for the leopardess to explain that the rules did not simply exist to shackle the free spirits of noble akitas. They were guidelines with a very clear purpose, and they tended to serve the Foreign Ministry quite well. 

Better, even, than the Foreign Ministry served its diplomats. Beltran had also never explained that her posting to the Dark Horse was not intended as a prestige assignment. It was intended to get her out of the hair of the other bureaucrats, who also didn't need meddling.

“The guidelines are relatively clear in this case, sir," Felicia said to the retriever. “In complicated diplomatic situations, we should err on the side of non-interference where it is possible."

It was a precisely recited answer, taken straight from a rulebook — they all thought it. David was the most inclined to appreciate her contribution. “That does leave some wiggle room, though," he pointed out, to give her a chance to elaborate.

“Yes."

The others took her curtness as a statement of finality. In truth Felicia was remembering the way her supervisor had looked, giving her the assignment that sent her to the frontier. He hadn't actually said, “and good riddance," but the implication was clear.

She'd never been written up or sanctioned because she was always right. Her objections were always based on the finer points of Foreign Ministry dictates and protocol. But these had been designed on the assumption that diplomats would be negotiating peace treaties and grand bargains.

Most of the Foreign Ministry dealt with petty trade disputes and petitions for asylum. They weren't worth caring about for any other reason than a peculiar devotion to duty. Madison May was not the first person to have told Felicia to shut up; her officemates had merely phrased it in polite, diplomatic terminology.

They wanted Felicia to be quiet because they were lazy, though. May wanted Felicia to be quiet because she saw the leopardess as an obstacle to doing the right thing; 'do the right thing' was May's very own General Order 1766.

“In that case…" David was looking for a way to wrap up the discussion.

“I should clarify." Felicia never started speaking without thinking first, but this time she was very close indeed. “They are guidelines, sir. Commodore Mercure would not have sent us on this mission if he did not value our judgment in addition to our reading comprehension."

Captain May pricked an ear. She had a hard time listening to Dr. Beltran, whose cautious formalism was at sharp odds to the akita's own personality. Now the leopardess seemed to be breaking character.

“Captain, in my opinion it would be wise to conduct an exchange of technology with the Dominion. Commander Bradley is correct, in that protocol argues for non-interference. However, in this case, we have already interfered. Moreover, while I appreciate Commander Bradley and Ensign Bader's objections, on the grounds of security, I pose another suggestion. In this area of uncharted space, where many of those we meet seem to be hostile, we need to begin making friends."

May blinked dark eyes. The akita's mask of fur exaggerated her perplexed expression. “Dr. Beltran, are you saying we should teach them?"

“Yes, Captain May."

“Dave?"

His captain was shocked at the diplomat's change of heart. Bradley, who prided himself on being more rational, had actually been listening to Beltran's argument rather than preparing to dismiss it. “I can't say I'm not also surprised," he allowed. “But if that's her opinion, I won't object. Dr. Beltran is the expert."

Theoretically this left Leon Bader objecting, but the shepherd understood the value of following orders and he wasn't about to second-guess both the XO and the captain. He acquiesced with a nod, and a silent reminder to begin running simulations against an Uxzu dreadnought — just in case.

After May closed the meeting, Leon did go in search of a kindred soul for advice. There weren't all that many. Eli Parnell was too nervous. Mitch Alexander was too flighty. Her best friend, TJ Wallace, was another Clearwater native whose demeanor suggested to Leon that he was still getting high somehow. In fact he was not stoned, merely an otter, but Leon had never been good with the difference.

At least Sabel Thorsen understood him. Sabel was unique amongst the crew in that he didn't have a rank. Dr. Beltran was treated as a civilian, but even she was technically a commissioned lieutenant. Sabel had never enlisted.

Sabel had never been given the chance. The stocky spitz was an entirely constructed beast, part of an experimental program of soldiers created to defend their ships against boarding parties. He had no memories prior to being defrosted, only a wealth of tactical knowledge and a sensibility that divided the world into things that could be safely punched and things that would need to be shot at from a distance.

He was hanging upside down in his quarters, practicing with his free weights and muttering about hitting things, when Leon buzzed the door for entry. “Computer," he growled. “Open."

“Ahoy, Sabel," Leon waved to the inverted face before him.

“Hello, Leon. How was the fighting?"

“Not bad." Sabel had missed the action; he didn't spend much time on the bridge. His programming hadn't come with any training on Star Patrol systems, and as he had no uniform besides his powered armor he spent much of his time naked. “You wouldn't have liked it, though. Too far away."

Sabel adjusted the gravity compensator of his dumbbell to drop the weight down to a few hundred grams, and let it fall to the floor. “Indeed, a shame. Did I see from the log that we're still next to an alien ship?"

“Yeah."

“Did you meet them?"

“Yes. I believe we're going to negotiate a treaty. We might even share some Star Patrol technology to help them."

The spitz knew that counsel was being sought, but not why. Nobody had programmed him with any advice, and what the crew gave him took the form of bizarre metaphors that proved invariably baffling. Leon had urged him to practice employing them nonetheless. “Do you trust these aliens?"

“I don't know yet. Their ship is heavily armed. They're also heavily armed."

“Good."

“Well… We found them fighting off some pirates…"

Sabel dropped from the ceiling, catching his heavy body with deceptive smoothness and rolling to his feet, repeating something he had been told offhandedly and hoped would pass for sage wisdom. “Well, Leon. You know what they say: the enemy of my enemy is…"

“My friend, I know."

“What?" Is that how it ends? Sabel rolled his eyes and filed it away as yet another one of those dumb Terran proverbs. “No, they're still your enemy. That isn't how it works. The enemy of my enemy is an indication of a complex threat environment in which I have numerous actual or potential opponents; therefore, I must be careful and seek localized tactical advantages to defeat each of them in turn."

“I think that Captain May or Dr. Beltran might also add, 'don't judge a book by its cover.'" 

That was a good idea, though, spoken by experienced counterinsurgency operatives. “Indeed. Because the enemy of your enemy might have camouflaged an improvised explosive device in the guise of printed reading material. You should at least subject it to a thorough multispectral scan and, ideally, only handle a book object with a remote disposal unit until you can be certain."

Leon saw in the spitz's worldview the logical conclusion of a road he had not yet fully traveled, and which was not without its downsides. “Well. That could be."

“However. It may also be that these aliens are not, in fact, your enemies. You should be on guard, but do not allow your natural caution to keep you from making a potential ally."

“So I should trust the captain? I know, I know. She's experienced."

Sabel nodded. “Captain May is the proverbial wolf in sheep's clothing. You should learn to be also."

“What?"

“A predator who understands that clothing is generally tactically irrelevant and would not ordinarily wear anything as a mere fashion statement. However, they are wise enough to don woolen outer garments even though they are not flattering, because the warmth provided allows them to function at peak efficiency despite external conditions. A wolf in sheep's clothing is flexible and effective."

“That's not… exactly what — you know, Sabel, I like your version better. I'll make sure we stay alert, but not… paranoid."

Satisfied that his experiments in trite sayings had been a success, Sabel Thorsen bowed. “Good luck. Maintain a fifteen meter distance from unidentified books if possible."

Aboard the shuttle, Felicia Beltran was also counseling preparedness — a short briefing that contained a summary of what they'd been able to glean about Uxzu behavior. “They have a diplomacy officer," the leopardess said. “I asked them for any protocol we should be aware of."

“What did they say?"

Alien cultures could be quite strict about that. The Ilorese prided themselves on generosity; a host and their guest were both expected to provide and exchange gifts, and to refuse to accept them, passing a ceremonial piece of cake back and forth until it lost structural integrity. The Nizirish plucked one of their feathers out and gave it to their host. The Americans clasped paws with each other, shaking them to ritually exchange body heat and germs.

It was important to know these things ahead of time. For the Uxzu diplomat, an explanation of protocol amounted to a thirty second diatribe on 'weakness,' the advantages of having sharp fangs in a world of prey with delicious entrails, and the importance of being blunt and outspoken. 

“They said that you should behave naturally." Dr. Beltran distilled the advice to its most important component.

“I should watch my tongue?"

“I gather that they engage in ritual combat, captain. If you provoke them, you might not enjoy the encounter."

May reflected on the fight between Xabok and Malim, and on Xabok's forearm-length claws. “Not a bad idea. She really did a number on her XO. David ought to be glad I'm not an Overenforcer of the Kolash Pride."

As usual when she came up with these little jokes, the akita was grinning; as usual the grin was unsettling to less reckless souls. Felicia also noticed a misunderstanding, or a slight failure of the universal translator. “Malim is not her executive officer."

“I thought he was the first mate?"

“Just a regular mate, captain. They are a couple."

Barry also noticed a misunderstanding, and was too busy fidgeting not to speak up. “Sort of. According to Qalamixi's information, the Uxzu have plural relationships. Someone of her rank probably has three to six husbands."

“That many?"

“They tend to… use them up." The folkloric records he'd found weren't clear on what was meant by this; Barry was inclined to attribute it to martial tendencies rather than marital ones.

And May was not. “Huh. 'Use them up'; that sounds fun. I guess David ought to be really glad I don't get to do that."

“Ask for one in trade, Mads," Shannon Hazelton piped up. “If she has a few spares."

The crew of the Dark Horse had not yet seen why David Bradley felt it was so important to keep Hazelton stashed away in the reactor room, but it was the little things like that. The eccentric engineer had a way of pouring fuel on the well-meaning fire that was Madison May, and the akita rarely needed any help with that.

There was, for example, a shakedown cruise on the survey ship Altaic early in May's career in which Hazelton had proposed using the ship's engines to drop a small asteroid from orbit and onto the uninhabited moon below — partly to test the thrusters, partly to test the sensors, and mostly just to see what would happen.

David knew about that one. He did not know about the pair's experiment in charting the Battani System, “Will a Mk. 6 Probe Survive the Photosphere of Battani-B" (answer: no), nor its two sequels — “How About Now?" (answer: no) and “Let's Try with the TCS Altaic" (answer: hey, that worked). It was glossed over in the Star Patrol database, which noted that the survey was more thorough and in-depth than any previous one.

He also did not know about what was, in sealed court records, referred to as the Great Shore Leave Caper. He certainly did not know that the records included the phrases “previously certified fireproof," “impressive if chemically worrisome," and “the quantity of candied fruit proved insufficient [see attached figure]."

Otherwise he might not have permitted the two to travel unchaperoned. But Bradley had stayed behind, and the task of decorum fell to Felicia Beltran. “Lieutenant Hazelton…"

“I'm not being serious," the raccoon replied, by which she meant that she was only being partly serious. She did feel that a bit of R&R would benefit the akita, whose welfare she was trying in her own way to look out for. “Mads can take of herself."

This time she was being serious — just misguided. Fortunately May had gone back to focusing on the task at hand, guiding the shuttle in for a landing, and Felicia declined to dignify the raccoon's provocations or her far-too-gleeful grin. Instead she waited for the shuttle to touch down, stood crisply, and straightened her formal attire so that Hazelton understood how some jobs were meant to be taken seriously.

Xabok was there to greet them at the airlock, with a contingent of fellow Uxzu. The two captains exchanged polite bows, and introductions. Then Xabok opened the far door, and they made their way into the Kedagh's interior.

The dreadnought was softly lit, but this was enough for the members of the Star Patrol to permit themselves a bit of observation. Her walls were utilitarian and roughly finished, built for strength rather than artistry.

Dr. Vaws Vimalok, of Ateus Astradyne, said that the interior of a ship could be just as telling as the exterior. We feel that a careful choice of colors and decor can put a visitor at ease.

The Kedagh's walls were a calming shade of slate blue. They were also covered in knick-knacks, many of which were weapons or armor in wildly different designs. Of the fixtures that didn't look like either, the predominant aesthetic appeared to be skulls.

There are a lot of them, May thought to herself. Xabok was leading them on a bit of a walk; bit by bit the Star Patrolmen started to fixate. Whatever message a corridor filled with skulls in various states of disrepair sent, Dr. Vimalok of Ateus Astradyne would not have approved.

More skulls — different ones, and larger — greeted them in the mess hall. The room stretched up a good ten meters and was lit by torches that might have seemed very out of place on a starship were it not for the garish and unsettling shadows they cast on the white bone. The crew exchanged glances.

Xabok, though, beamed. “Welcome. Your diplomat sent me your dietary requirements. We are compatible!" 

Of all the words that could've been used, this was one of the more troubling. May was willing to extend the benefit of the doubt, but she still desired clarification. “Compatible?"

“Your bodies are composed of edible proteins and other nontoxic compounds. This is not universal. The Waneshans, for example, are largely indigestible." Xabok took her place behind a long and well-used table, facing her smaller visitors.

Xabok was kneeling, but the Uxzu were so massive that standing proved easier for May and the others. It put the akita at eye level, which was quite close to teeth level. Xabok had lots of teeth. “That's, um. An intriguing coincidence."

“Not just intriguing, but fortunate. We can dine together."

Before anyone could specifically confirm what was meant by this adverb, Xabok thumped her huge paw on the table. The seated Uxzu straightened to attention, and from a mixture of politeness and concern the crew of the Dark Horse did the same.

A door opened, and a handful of new figures entered — six-legged creatures the size of feral elk, with broad backs and thick, corded fur. They were balancing trays, which they brought to the table and served using their middle pair of thick, many-jointed limbs.

They had arrived in silence and they departed in silence, which Felicia's diplomatic training chalked up to deference and May's observant eyes chalked up to their lack of any visible mouth. Shannon, Leon and Barry were busy examining the food itself.

All of the menu items were served in large bowls suitable for communal eating. Some of them looked recognizable as salads or pastas. Some of them were moving.

May put off eating with a friendly question. “Were they also of your pride?"

Xabok rocked her great head. “No. They reside within the Dominion. We call them besak, after a native animal they resemble, but they are not from our homeworld. And we can't pronounce their name — they communicate by touch — but they're supposed to be the finest chefs within ten sectors. They digest their food in a pouch over a period of weeks, so they put great emphasis on making it good. You will enjoy it!" 

It sounded a little like an order, which had a way of drawing attention to the more animated of the dishes. For once in her life, Madison went for words instead of action. “The chefs are your crew? Or is their planet, like, a client state?"

“The Dominion does not have 'client states,'" Xabok answered, with an edge on the reply that suggested the question had been slightly offensive. “We are not pirates. We don't take slaves."

“The Dominion is more or less a collection of autonomous planets," Barry added his own understanding, looking fixedly at his captain and ignoring any scuttling in his peripheral vision. “Guarded by the Uxzu, but loosely governed."

“There is honor in leading well. There is honor in following a good leader. There is no honor in subjugation." Xabok took a serving of what the Star Patrol would eventually be disappointed to learn was not tagliatelle in a tomato sauce. She lifted it to her nose, sniffed, and promptly inhaled the plate's contents with a happy growl.

This was the cue for the rest of the Kedagh's crew, at least, to begin eating — which they did with great gusto. Their guests were a little more hesitant. Felicia settled on the white noodles, and Barry cautiously reached for the least mobile object on the tray, which had the appearance and warmth of something baked.

“Miri bread," Xabok explained as he took the roll. “An Uxzu speciality. The mulinankai is also traditional. Your diplomat does us a great honor. Our chefs have almost perfected it — of course, we pay them well. Client states! Hm!"

Felicia approached the flat noodles more delicately than Xabok had, sucking one carefully between her lips. The taste was not unpleasant, accompanied by a sweet, slightly tangy sauce. “Thank you for providing this," she said, and hoped it was the right response. “And we did not mean to offend — it is only that you are a very new culture to us."

“Hm," the alien captain grunted again. “You're not the first to think of rulers and subjects. I don't understand it. A pride is led by the strongest and most capable — not just for the sake of leading. How could we lead the besaks? We can't even speak their language. It would be dishonorable to enslave them simply because we could. They live their lives, and we live ours."

She pontificated further, between bites, and the Dark Horse crew started to understand a little of how the Dominion had been gradually whittled down.

Like feral predators, they claimed and defended territory without truly needing to own it. The races within the Dominion's sphere of influence had been left to their own devices, for precisely the same reason that a wolf pack had no interest in managing the affairs of beehives or meddling in the internal politics of rabbit warrens.

It was, even, something of a prime directive.

And there was a bit of symbiosis, for the Dominion allowed the besaks to go about their business in a way that more possessive empires would not. “Live and let live," Xabok concluded. Then she plucked one of the scrabbling residents of the serving tray, snapped it in half, and sucked out the contents noisily.

The sound of cracking exoskeleton was a bit jarring, and did not endear the dish to any non-Uxzu watching. Leon had already resolved to eat once he was back aboard the Dark Horse. Shannon and Barry were sticking to bread. Felicia, who among them had been indoctrinated in the need for cultural sensitivity, was inordinately happy that mulinankai was so palatable.

This left May, whose novelty-seeking brain was at work quelling a rebellious stomach. She picked one of the things up; it was about the size and temperature of a dill pickle, but pickles did not squirm when held and pickles did not have two rows of glittering eyes.

“Tallegh roach. You break, then eat," Xabok explained helpfully. She demonstrated with another one, and if anything this time the sound of her consuming the innards was even louder.

Well. It's kind of like a crayfish, May's brain suggested. Her stomach was not convinced. Remember, they said it's not poisonous because we're compatible. This line of reasoning also failed.

What will Xabok think of the Star Patrol if you can't manage to —

May twisted the carapace open, put it to her lips, and sucked in something that had the taste and texture of tapioca pudding. What remained of the shell was no longer moving. “Huh," the akita said.

Between the Star Patrol captain's look of bemusement and her crew's queasy disgust, Xabok was clearly enjoying herself. She boomed out her laughter, and presently the other Uxzu joined in. “Good, mm? Good."

“Huh."

Leon wondered if he was supposed to intervene, though May hadn't needed protection before. “Captain?"

“Huh," she said a third time, and then took another one of the little insects. “You want one, ensign?" He shook his head. It would not have been proper to giggle, and May suppressed the impulse, but she was not so tickled that she didn't eat the second one with emphatic gusto.

Looks could be deceiving. By her sixth helping of roach, May had already forgotten any earlier reservation and was back in good spirits. Xabok smiled, plainly happy that the entomological gesture of goodwill had been well-received. “Tallegh roaches are an old delicacy. Their eggs are also very delicious."

“You should have one," the akita suggested again to her crew. “They're pretty good. Like vanilla pudding with meat chunks floating in it. Except a little more slimy."

Madison had not exactly passed up a career in food reviewing to join the Star Patrol, and her description didn't entice any of the others. They were weighing the pros and cons of subsisting entirely on ice cream for the remainder of the Dark Horse's mission. It took a lot to make one grateful for the reconstituted protein slurry of a star cruiser's food printer, but roach had done the trick. 

“I will content myself with the mulinankai," Dr. Beltran answered. “It has less exoskeleton, and pasta is a universal constant."

“I'm honored on the chef's behalf that you like it, but it's not pasta," Xabok said. She didn't seem to accord the digression much weight, and she didn't notice the way the leopardess froze.

“What is it?" Some kind of a native grain? A kelp?

“Slices of a young ankai's visual membrane, sauteed with its stomach contents."

Oh, of course. Why wouldn't it be? Felicia desperately wanted to use a bad word, at least in her internal monologue. It took far more effort than earning a doctorate had required for her to stop at carefully setting the plate down and not becoming violently ill. “You have been too kind in… sharing… your cuisine with us."

“Not all of it is ours," Xabok replied, fortunately oblivious. “Tallegh is ours. Miri bread is ours. Mulinankai is ours." She pointed to the other dishes in turn. “Raw hayish tongue from the Valiri, Sogan gizzard soup, spider paste from Galgaren Prime. This stuff." The Uxzu had picked up a bowl of what looked to be innocent leaves and slices of other vegetables. “Malim, what is this?" 

“Xallat," Malim answered, with the guttural stuttering from the universal translator that told the Star Patrol he was pronouncing a loan word.

“Yes, yes. But what is it?"

“It's… er. It's… it's…" Her mate took the bowl and stared at the lettuce. He pulled a piece out and tore it carefully in his claws before putting it back with its kin. Bringing the whole bowl to his muzzle, he sniffed carefully at the assemblage. He performed every investigation short of actually tasting it, and finally he shrugged. “It's green."

“Cellulose. Vile, really," Xabok growled, confirming that her people were not familiar enough with xallats to distinguish the garden variety from any other. Felicia weighed the odds that it would be edible against the odds that it might have been served with some kind of unspeakable horror as a vinaigrette, and came to the same conclusion as Shannon and Leon: they were not so hungry, after all.

That left more for Madison, whose self-appointed position as gustatory ambassador was not about to be challenged by anyone else. “You're a very unique species," the akita declared, giving Felicia yet another reason to cringe. “I admit, we were a bit taken aback when we met you. Your decor is quite unusual."

“What are you referring to?"

“All the bones, mostly."

“Oh! Yes, that." Xabok said it as though festooning a starship with body parts might not have been her idea but was, at most, a mild and forgivable social faux pas. Her yes, that had the tone of someone called to explain their inherited collection of thimbles, or a slightly overgrown front yard. Yes, that. I keep meaning to get around to the skulls, but you know how much work space dreadnoughts are… 

“Why are they there?"

“Mm! The way a ship looks can send a message, I believe. The Kedagh's message is one of honor and memory. When a warrior falls in battle, it is customary for their arms and their very skull to be given a permanent place on the walls of their ship. That way they're always with us. And in turn, we always know our place. Our life serves only the Pride. Our Pride serves only the Dominion." She thumped her paw heavily on the table in a sort of toast that had her crew at immediate attention.

“Shield, blade, and claw!" they called in answer.

The explanation made sense, which was not to say that it wasn't a bit unsettling to be surrounded by the bones of one's dead comrades. “The, ah. The skulls in the dining room are quite a bit larger. Were they allies?"

Xabok treated herself to another roach before answering. “Avu leads our marines. He tells the story better."

Avu looked up at the sound of his name. Bits of mulinankai 'noodle' hung from his teeth. “Mm? Oh, yes. The Great Mole War. Seven years ago, the Kedagh received a distress call from one of our new colonies. They requested help with a Prellian mole infestation. Our captain scoffed, but the leader of the Kolash Pride ordered her to investigate anyway."

Prellian moles, Avu explained, were ground-dwelling animals who were almost never seen. Every few decades, they emerged from their burrows and migrated to new lands. Mostly they were a farmer's nuisance, but they kept the soil aerated and fertilized and at worst they could be trapped or shot.

“The colony was founded just before the previous cycle. They expected them to remain small. But a mole's size depends on its food supply. These ones had spent fifty years feasting on the tender roots of the colony's crops. And when they began to emerge…"

Avu described the scene vividly. The Kedagh's landing party arrived just as the migration was beginning in earnest. The ground swelled and opened up, revealing moles the size of elephants, possessed with an acute case of wanderlust and utterly heedless of the colony in their path. They trampled the outlying guard posts. They plowed through the irrigation dams. By the thousands, they carved a path of utter destruction.

“We charged against them, axes at the ready — but for every one we gutted, five more raced forward to take its place! They overwhelmed the heavy cannons. And then they vaulted the ditches we had filled with oil and set afire — thousands of them, chittering and scampering through the thick smoke. Our last stand was at the city walls. The Kedagh launched every bomber we had. I called in the strike myself. 'We're being overrun!' I shouted. The air commander wanted to know what his target was. 'Moles!' I told him."

“The air commander thought that we had discovered a spy," Xabok added.

“The sound of thunder lasted for hours. Even still we were nearly overcome. It was the most exhilarating battle I have ever fought!"

Leon appreciated the enthusiasm a great deal more than he appreciated the food, but it was still animal control they were talking about. “Against moles?"

Avu pointed his sharp claw towards the skulls surrounding them — skulls nearly as large as the Uxzu marine. “Against those. The colony leaders prepared a few and gave them to us as a trophy. As a monument to the time the Kolash Pride was nearly laid low by burrowing mammals."

Xabok obviously didn't feel the story lacked for an element of the glorious. “We learned much. Next time, we will be ready."

Captain May felt the moment was right. Her intuition told her that her doubts about the Uxzu had been misplaced. “Are you interested in learning about other things?"

“Such as?"

“This is Lieutenant Hazelton, my chief engineer and one of the most well-respected inventors in the Star Patrol," Madison introduced the raccoon — as surprised as anyone else to hear herself described as 'well-respected.' “I know that you didn't ask for our help in repairing your ship, but I was hoping that you might hear us out."

Xabok looked thoughtfully between the two. “I'm listening."

Shannon licked her lip nervously. Her captain at least had the advantage of size and bulk: Mads would be a few mouthfuls for the big aliens. A raccoon, on the other hand, would not. “Well. I detected large quantities of iridium on your ship. From this, I deduce that you're using linear catalyzers to control and radiate heat. Is there a reason you don't use dissipating filters coupled to a resonating circuit? It would be more efficient, and, uh…"

The captain's hard eyes had narrowed. “Are you saying my ship is defective?"

“The tiny one is trying to be humorous," one of the other Uxzu said. “Such a device is theoretical. An old joke."

Raccoons already had a reputation, but in this case Shannon had the suspicion that it was liable to get her eaten and she was not in the mood. She splayed her fingers and placed her paw palm-down on the table, tapping her thumb twice and turning on the embedded computer to project a glowing hologram. “On Terra, we call this a Grant unit, it's a thyristor that can be used to regulate a circuit with a lot of thermal energy. They don't reduce heat on their own, but they make it easier."

The Uxzu who had spoken looked to be torn between skepticism and awe at the holographic image. “That's not possible. Our scientists have told us such a device would require exotic elements with a negative" — the sentence ended in a series of choking, grumbling growls as the universal translator hit a sudden wall.

Shannon soldiered on. “The key components here are made of silicon dioxide. You just need to be able to tune it…" 

The alien leaned over the table for a closer examination, sharply, overturning a bowl of food. The few roaches left within scuttled through the circuitry diagram in hopeful search of freedom. Most of the observers were too engrossed to care; it fell to May and Xabok to polish them off.

“What you'd want to do is —"

“Overenforcer," the Uxzu cut her off to address his captain. “I see what she means!"

Xabok licked her muzzle clean of insect parts. “You do?"

For May, this question had a very familiar tone. Actually it had a familiar tone for most of her crew, as well, who had heard her employ it often. They were all beginning to find kindred spirits. “I told you Lieutenant Hazelton is very smart."

“Only… we cannot do it. I think for this to work, we would need smaller heatsinks…"

Nobody was paying attention to Barry, which meant that nobody was ready to put a hand up when he opened his muzzle. “That's not true," he said, two seconds before his brain was ready to remind him of the requirements of decorum but only one second before everyone at the table was looking at him. “Oh. I mean, not that you're wrong. I mean that you can tune the dissipator to the natural frequency of the radiating unit. This is actually how the Vanthic sunminers do it — the constellation looks like a Dyson swarm, but at those sizes the natural implementation would be impractical, so what they do is fold the converter rather than use a traditional isointegrating lens on the main power array. We —"

“We can't do that," the Uxzu cut him off, though he hadn't growled and he was clearly distracted trying to think of alternatives. “Our main winding is of the normal lotus-o-delta type."

“Hm!"

This meant nothing to May; he might as well have been speaking in tongues. Space engineers were more or less wizards, casting spells in made-up words, and Madison had never been good at that. But soon the conversation had drawn Shannon back in, and two of the aliens. They seemed to be making progress.

While they worked, the Star Patrol split up. Malim offered to take Felicia on a tour through the ship's corridors, with further explanation of the skulls adorning its walls; the leopardess had her computer out to start taking notes immediately.

Similarly the marine commander saw in Leon an opportunity to recount the Kedagh's combat history in detail that would've been excruciating to anyone but the German shepherd. Twenty minutes later Avu had the shepherd on his shoulders, holding him aloft so that he could see a captured Waneshan energy sword close up.

May was not around to observe. The akita found herself on the bridge of the Kedagh — a darkly, crisply functional room. Star Patrol cruisers had bright, open, well-lit bridges. They sent a message, and that message was: 'hi!' 

The Uxzu dreadnought said, instead, we get things done. There were no chirping, colorful holograms and flat-panel displays, only banks of switches and gauges manned by studious, intense spacemen. There was something to be said for it.

“I did not know what to expect when we met you," Xabok told her. “You are very strange. Small, like prey. You offered to help us when you knew nothing of who we were."

“You were a little strange, too. With the claws, and saying you were going to execute Malim, and all. But, hey, first impressions, right?"

Xabok turned, slowly. At last, she nodded, and put her huge paw on the akita's shoulder. It was warm, and also very heavy. “Our territory is still several parsecs distant. But I wish you to know that you will always have friends when you travel through the Dominion. I will not forget this. The Kolash Pride will not forget it, either."

“Likewise!" May, who knew little about alien diplomacy, would later be happy to know that Felicia also considered the first contact a success. For now she was mostly focused on not collapsing under the weight of the captain's paw. “I'm glad we came to investigate."

“The Kedagh was exploring. The Dominion wished to see what was beyond our borders. Most of them have been unfriendly, and unsuitable even for consumption. But you…"

Am I supposed to like this? Disagree? “I am suitable?" 

Xabok boomed her laughter, and patted the akita in what would have been a purely friendly way, had May also been three meters tall and eight hundred kilograms. “Yes."

“Good?"

“The ruling council will be grateful to know that there still people yet among the stars with honor, Madison May of the Star Patrol. Your skull could stay on the walls of my ship forever."

Madison coughed. “So from a purely 'first impression' standpoint, ah, that doesn't come off as a compliment. I think it's supposed to be."

“You do have much to learn of us, yet. As we do of you, tiny hunter. As we do of you." She patted the akita again, and May winced. “We'll teach each other, don't worry."

At long last May was beginning to understand the value of diplomacy. She did have questions about the Dominion, after all! I bet I'm making Felicia happy, she thought to herself. This part would have been accurate.

I think I could be a good diplomat. This part was less accurate, but what had Felicia said? Behave naturally, that was what.

“Hey, so, I have a question."

“Yes?"

“What does 'use up' mean to you guys?"